By Dan Ambrose: It’s generally agreed that the fight the boxing world wants to see is Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September 2017. That’s the fight that the fans have been talking about for the past year, and it’s the number 1 fight in all of the sport. However, with Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy looking to take a detour by fighting the still popular Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6, they could be ruining the chances for a much bigger fight between Canelo and GGG next year.
The reason why is simple. Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. is going to make truckloads of money for both fighters with it likely pulling in more than 1 million buys on HBO pay-per-view, and potentially selling out the 80,000 seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Do you honestly think that if Canelo brings those kinds of numbers, he’s going to want to give Golovkin a fair deal when it comes to the negotiations between them? No way. If anything, Golden Boy will dig their heels into the sand and resist any notion of giving Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler the percentage deal that they want for the revenue for the fight.
Normally, when you have two very popular fighters looking to make a mega-fight between them, they work on percentage deal with both guys taking a share of the money. But that’s not what Golden Boy is interested in doing with Triple G.
Instead of giving Golovkin a percentage deal, which would be fair, they’re offering him just a flat fee of $15 million. In other words, chump change. Assuming that the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight brings in over $300 million in total revenue, it leaves Canelo with literally boatloads of retirement money, while Golovkin walks away with just $15 million. Now you tell me, is that fair to Golovkin? Of course, it’s not. The thing is, if Canelo make a huge amount of money fighting Chavez Jr. on Cinco de Mayo on HBO PPV, then it creates less of a need for Canelo and Golden Boy to negotiate with Triple G and his promoter Tom Loeffler.
If Canelo believes he can make TONS of money fighting shot fighters like Chavez Jr., while offering him just $6 million, then there’s nothing to stop Canelo from giving Golovkin a take it or leave it offer of $15 million for the fight, which would make far more money than that small amount.
It’s disappointing to think about the Golovkin fight going up in smoke in 2017, and possibly permanently, but I have a feeling that’s exactly what’s going to happen if the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight is hugely successful in ticket sales and pay-per-view buys. Just think about it. If Canelo is able to bring in well over 1 million buys against an arguably mediocre super middleweight like Chavez Jr., then why does he need to give Golovkin a fair deal? Golovkin wants a percentage deal for the Canelo fight. He’s probably not going to get it. In fact, I don’t think Golden Boy will even bother entertaining the idea of giving Golovkin a percentage deal after Canelo pulls in a lot of loot for his fight against Chavez Jr.
I just picture Loeffler walking into Golden Boy headquarters, saying this to head honcho Oscar De La Hoya: ‘Is it possible for Golovkin to get a percentage deal for the Canelo fight?’ I could then see Loeffler being laughed out of the room and sent on his way. I think that’s what’s going to happen.
Canelo’s fight against Chavez Jr. is the worst thing that could happen for the boxing fans and for Golovkin. Instead of the fans seeing a great fight between Canelo and Golovkin, they’re stuck seeing a mismatch between Canelo and Chavez Jr. In other words, they’re seeing another Canelo vs. James Kirkland fight. Like Kirkland, Chavez Jr. is a fighter from the past who has seen better days, and is no longer relevant in this day and age. Chavez Jr. stopped being a factor in boxing in 2012. That’s when he was whipped by Sergio Martinez. So instead of Golden Boy picking a relevant fighter for Canelo to fight that could potentially beat him, they’ve selected Chavez Jr. to beat up and make Canelo look better than he is. This is Canelo vs. Kirkland all over again, and the casual boxing fans don’t realize that. Instead of Golden Boy putting Canelo in with GGG, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams or Erislandy Lara, they’ve found a vulnerable Chavez Jr. for him to fight. It’s really sad and you can see through it all. This is just soft match-making by Golden Boy in putting their flagship fighter Canelo in with a guy that he can beat with 100 percent certainty against Chavez Jr. This isn’t going to be a competitive fight, and I don’t think it’s meant to be. Golden Boy knows what they see in Chavez Jr. If they wanted a 50-50 fight, they could throw Canelo into the ring with Jermall Charlo and hope he doesn’t get poleaxed like Julian Williams and Cornelius Bundrage both were against him.
Supposing that Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. pulls in big numbers in attendance and PPV buys, it’s going to make the Golovkin fight all but impossible. The only way I can see the Canelo-Golovkin fight getting made after that fight is if Golovkin just gives up and agrees to the lump sum offer that is given to him by Golden Boy, because I don’t believe for a second that Golden Boy is going to increase the $15M offer to Golovkin. On the contrary, I think they might lower the offer depending on how Golovkin looks against Daniel Jacobs in their fight on March 18 on HBO Championship Boxing from Madison Square Garden in New York.
If Golovkin struggles and looks bad in winning like he did against welterweight Kell Brook on September 10 this year, then I can definitely see Golden Boy lowering the lump sum offer from $15 million to $10 million and not batting an eye in doing so. It would be bad news for Golovkin if he doesn’t shine against Jacobs, because Russian Dmitry Pirog destroyed him in 5 rounds in 2010. Jacobs hasn’t fought anyone good since then. He’d been padding his ring record ever since with one poor after another.
A loss for Golovkin against Jacobs finishes the idea of him fighting Canelo. Golden Boy would no longer need to risk Canelo’s hide in putting him in with GGG under those conditions. It’s not that the fight still wouldn’t do really well, because it definitely would. Enough casual boxing fans would still want to see Canelo fight Golovkin to make it more than worthwhile to make the fight. But with Golovkin still being very, very dangerous to a short middleweight like the 5’8” Canelo Alvarez, I think Golden Boy would look to avoid that fight permanently and use the excuse of Golovkin having lost to Jacobs as a reason why they’re not going to match Canelo against him.
The boxing public may not realize it yet, but the Canelo-Chavez Jr. will ruin the Golovkin fight in my estimation. Instead of the fans getting the big fight between Canelo and Golovkin, they’re going to be stuck watching Canelo pummel a fighter whose career imploded four years ago in Chavez Jr.